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This piece was written out of frustration with the 2012 goofiness that threatened to become actual idiocity. It is how I feel when I don’t fall down the rabbit hole of fear I wrote about in The End.

While most North American children my age were enjoying Care Bears, Pogo Balls and Transformers, I was being raised on Apocalyptica. As a youngster, I was exposed to stories, images and movies that make modern horror films seem tame.

One of the truly frightening moments of my life was when, at the age of about six, I stayed upstairs in the adult service to watch a live action play called Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames. In summary, actors on stage – people I knew from the congregation – made an overt exclamation of their belief in Jesus, or their disdain for him . Then they died. After death, the believers were led through the on-stage door into heaven by Jesus (played by one of the few white fellows in our congregation.) Satan dragged non-believers, screaming, down into the baptismal tub. I ended the day unable to sleep and weeping in fear. My mother bought the cassette tape.

My mother was young, with three small children and little proper support. This violent and totalitarian version of religion drew her in, I believe, because it provided her with absolutes. It also permitted her to use fear, of punishment from God and from her, to control children that she was not equipped to raise and guide with love. Fear was a tool of both the church and the adults in my life. Fear was my constant companion and it almost removed from me the ability to think, learn and grow for myself. Almost.

As I hit high school, the disconnect between people’s belief and their behavior seemed wider. The questions grew more specific and complicated, while the answers grew simpler and less likely. Reading, research and inquiry have allowed me to slowly unwind the ball of fear that the constant watch for an imaginary apocalypse had rendered. And as the fear waned, so did the ability of those who had placed it there to control my actions.

As an adult, I maintained an interest, partly scientific and partly sensationalistic, in the social phenomenon of apocalyptica. I couldn’t help but notice when rag mags ran the latest prediction of when, where and why it would come. My ears would perk up if it entered conversation. As the Internet flourished, I started looking up information, partly to try to understand the source of this idea and partly to keep silent any remaining vestiges of that fear-ball.

The more I looked, the more ridiculous it seemed. After all, these were stories told to scare children, I thought. It turned out that the tools used to frighten children can also be used to control nations. With 2012, and the upcoming Maypocalypse, it has become clear that this concept is even ingrained in our self-vaunted, intellectual, North American psyche. So much so that NASA’s scientists – folks who should really be busy with other things – feels the need to publically debunk it. Again.

There are recorded declarations of impending doom that date back to the first written records of our species. Every time doom was called for, and the date passed, the clerics or leaders who predicted it would pronounce victory for their moral standard and come up with the next viable doomsday.

Again and again, people revealed the combination of hopelessness and hubris that is necessary to think that our actions could dictate the end of the universe. When the holy spanking never came, we rarely blamed the folks making the original threats. We could see that there was no wolf, but every time the boy howled, we ran out, just in case.

I, for one, am tired of listening. Could 2012 be the end of our species? Could the Mayans be the ones who finally get it right? Could falling blue toilet ice from an airplane kill me as I walk to work today? Er, it’s unlikely. I’m certainly not going to live my life in fear of toilet ice. The next time someone announces that the end is nigh, I plan to let the boy keep right on screaming. As I recall, when the wolf finally did come, the bratty boy was the only one out there to be eaten.